


Finally, a Little Healing

by thundercrackfic



Series: Ineffably Soft [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Asexual Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley has Trauma from the Fall (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Feelings (Good Omens), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Touch-Starved Crowley (Good Omens), Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:20:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22570030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thundercrackfic/pseuds/thundercrackfic
Summary: Crowley’s not good with words, but he’s just good enough for Aziraphale to understand that his demon needs help. Finally, a few 6,000-year-old wounds are healed.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Ineffably Soft [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1534874
Comments: 45
Kudos: 365





	Finally, a Little Healing

“Angel. I—erm, hm. Ehhhh—“ Crowley tossed back his brandy and snarled in a way that Aziraphale recognized, after millennia of experience, as Crowley being irritated with himself. 

Aziraphale placed a scrap of satin ribbon in his book and set it aside, then folded his glasses and gave the demon his undivided attention. “Is there something you need, dear boy?”

Crowley huffed through his nose and glared down at his empty glass. “That thing. When we—you—with—“ he trailed off, gesticulating wildly. “All the eyes and the aura, you, know, it. Felt.” He gnashed his teeth. “Good,” he finally gritted out. He glared at his glass until it refilled itself, then took another hefty swig.

With equal exasperation and fondness, Aziraphale tried to determine what the demon could be speaking about. He knew that if he asked for clarification, Crowley might drop the subject. He couldn’t let that happen. It was so rare that Crowley asked for anything. But now that Armageddon had failed to happen, and Aziraphale had been written off by the Host as a bad job, he was ready to make up for every single snub he’d inflicted on Crowley in six thousand years of attempting to toe the Heavenly line. He had a lot to make up for.

 _All the eyes._ Something to do with their ethereal natures, then. “Do you mean—would you like to meet on the other plane again?” That had been nice, even if Crowley’s appearance there had been a little disturbing. Crowley’s demonic form had been a writhing dark mass of twisting, snaky coils, misshapen wings, horns and spikes and hunger.

“Ng,” Crowley said, nodding. “Yeah, but. Not just that. You—took the edges off, a little. Was—good, not to feel it, for a bit.” When Crowley said “feel it,” Aziraphale saw that his whole body tensed, his knuckles going white, his lips drawn back.

With horror, Aziraphale realized that all that mess may not have been Crowley’s essential demonic nature, but rather an ongoing suffering that he might be able to alleviate. “Oh, Crowley, are you in pain?”

“Errm...” Crowley said, jaw tense, looking everywhere but at Aziraphale, downing another slug of liquor without tasting it.

Aziraphale let the walls around his aura become a little permeable, and felt the familiar fire that seethed under Crowley’s human shape. Aziraphale had always taken for granted that the dark emotional flavor of Crowley’s aura was just _demon_ -ness. It had the flavor of pain, but every demon he’d ever met had that same flavor to their aura. Was it not essential? Was it—

“Crowley, please, tell me. Does it hurt?”

“S’alright,” Crowley said, still not meeting Aziraphale’s eyes. “‘M used to it, it’s just—“

“Used to it! _Crowley._ ” Aziraphale’s essential compassion and mercy swelled, fit to burst out of his corporation. He tamped it down so as not to frighten the skittish demon, but was aware that he had started glowing a little. “I didn’t know. Of course I can help you. I’m so sorry you’ve had to ask. Please, let me. Only—you’re going to have to talk to me, a little, explain more about what’s not right that I can put right.”

Crowley barked a rueful laugh. “Talking’s not my forte, angel.”

Aziraphale refrained from pointing out that Crowley could speak in perfectly complete sentences when he was being self-deprecating. But he did say: “Neither is physical contact, my dear, but you’re going to have to let me touch you if you want me to try to heal you.”

Crowley evidently hadn’t thought of that. He dragged his hands down his face.

Aziraphale waited, trying to hide his own tenseness. One reason he liked being on Earth so much was the confinement to human corporations — it created boundaries to his ethereal self, as though the human frame was a vessel that could contain his faults, hide his failures at being a proper angel beneath the costume of a weak human body. He suspected Crowley felt the same way. To touch a human had no effect on that, because humans could only vaguely sense his angelic nature. But for two immortals such as themselves to have no barrier between them — a lot could be revealed, without intending it.

Aziraphale was ready to reveal some things to Crowley. Crowley, for his part, sat with his shoulders hunched practically to his ears, without his usual langorousness. All spiky joints, radiating discomfort. Aziraphale wanted to reach out, but kept still. He was very good at being still and waiting patiently.

Crowley’s eyes flicked up to his own. They darted away again, down and to the side. Shame. But then the demon shrugged and thereby rearranged his body an inch to the side, making marginally more space on the loveseat next to him. This was sufficient invitation for Aziraphale.

Carefully, as though he were approaching a trembling fawn, Aziraphale stood up and crept over to the loveseat, encouraging it to become a slightly longer couch as he did so. Crowley made a noise in his throat and scrambled to the opposite end of what was now a sofa, knees drawn to his chest and ankles crossed.

Aziraphale settled on the couch, wiggling a little to make a comfy indentation in the cushions, laid his book and glasses on the table next to him, and patted his thigh. “Lay your head here,” he said, in what he hoped was a tone both inviting and firm.

Crowley fled. He sprang off the couch and disappeared among the book stacks. Aziraphale wanted to leap after him, but refrained, knowing the flighty demon would only run farther. Instead, he calmly picked up his book and his glasses and resumed reading, studiously ignoring his friend’s antics.

Crowley reappeared, poured himself another generous snifter of brandy, and vanished again. Aziraphale continued to read — or at least pretended to — while also monitoring Crowley’s progress through the bookshop. The demon paced a little, walked toward the door, and stopped. Aziraphale heard a gulp of brandy, and couldn’t help a smirk as he also heard the demon cough after drinking too quickly. Then came the quiet sound of Crowley muttering to himself. Aziraphale couldn’t hear the details, but it had the cadences of complete sentences — likely self-abuse, then. Aziraphale stifled a sigh, and turned a page.

He heard Crowley approach, to a position just out of Aziraphale’s view. It would’ve been unnerving, knowing a demon was standing within striking distance, with Aziraphale blind to him, but there was no one in all of Creation that Aziraphale trusted more than he trusted Crowley. That thought gave him a warm feeling, and he let himself smile, as he let his aura expand with a glow of love and safety and welcome. He smirked, knowing he was playing a little dirty, but he could feel how much the demon needed comfort, and the angel had so much comfort to offer.

Crowley stepped into view. Aziraphale didn’t look up, but he could see the demon’s fists clenched. He’d put down the brandy snifter somewhere. Aziraphale sensed that Crowley was challenging him to say something that would set Crowley off, make him storm away from this uncomfortably intimate invitation. Aziraphale smiled a little more. He wouldn’t give Crowley the satisfaction. He did drop his hand and smooth a wrinkle on the trousers of his left thigh, twice, and then raised his arm to rest across the back of the couch, all the while keeping his eyes focused on his book. _Look at my lap_ , his hands said. _Doesn’t it look soft and warm? But it’s empty. So sad._

“Nnnnnnng.” The sound came from Crowley’s chest. But finally, he folded. He sat on the couch, swinging his legs up, and then leaned over, letting his head rest on Aziraphale’s plush thigh. Tense, at first, but then beginning to relax. Aziraphale reveled in how softly he could pillow his jittery, thorny demon. Aziraphale had always found his own softness pleasurable, no matter what Gabriel said. All the better to provide comfort with.

Aziraphale didn’t move or respond except to deliberately deepen his breathing, making a soothing rhythm of it. Crowley’s body was tensely coiled. Minutes ticked by, and Aziraphale felt the demon relax, bit by bit. Slowly, Aziraphale dropped his hand until it rested on Crowley’s upper arm. Crowley tensed, and Aziraphale’s hand tingled, but he remained utterly still except for the steady, rhythm of his deep breathing. Crowley relaxed a little more.

Still too tense, though. Aziraphale — no longer focusing on his book at all — decided to take a risk; it could send Crowley running or set him at ease, he wouldn’t know until he tried. He lifted his hand from Crowley’s arm and touched his fingers to Crowley’s hair. Lightly combed from front to back with his fingertips. Crowley inhaled sharply. Aziraphale stroked his scalp again, and again. The demon hadn’t exhaled yet.

He had to ask. “Is this all right, my dear?”

Crowley licked his lips. “Yssssss,” he said, faintly.

Aziraphale returned to his book, stroking Crowley’s hair. At length, the demon finally relaxed into his most fluid state, settling into the cushions, one leg on the armrest and one dangling across the back of the couch, eyes half-lidded. Breathing regularly again, shallowly, but in rhythm with Aziraphale.

 _Temptation accomplished_ , Aziraphale thought, with a smug grin that he knew Crowley couldn’t see. He felt a fleeting sense of pride at having so effectively reduced a demon to total vulnerability, but the feeling was totally superseded by a burst of sentimental love that overwhelmed him for a few moments. All these years of circling each other, and enforcing their separation, maintaining plausible deniability, and finally, here they were.

Aziraphale felt doubly blessed. He indulged for a few moments in the warmth of that blessing, cherishing his love for Crowley and Crowley’s trust in him. He gathered that sensation, let it fill him up until he was ready to overflow, wanting nothing more than to make Crowley feel something of what he felt in that moment.

“Crowley,” he said, at his gentlest. Crowley blinked languidly, obviously far away. “Dearest. Will you permit me to heal you? You will have to let me get a little closer.”

Another slow blink, but no words. Aziraphale waited. Crowley lifted a hand — slowly, as though it weighed a ton — and let it rest on Aziraphale’s hand in his hair. Aziraphale waited. Did Crowley want him to stop? Want him to continue? Crowley dragged his hand forward, across his cheek. Brought Aziraphale’s hand closer, pressed his lips to the angel’s knuckles. Exhaled a long sigh.

Words were hard for Crowley when he wanted something, Aziraphale knew. That was enough affirmation, then. Aziraphale retook control of his hand, squeezed Crowley’s, set it down on the couch, then pressed his own hand against Crowley’s chest. “I’m going to begin. We don’t have to go to the ethereal plane, we can stay right here. If ever you feel it’s too much, just say so, or touch my hand. I’ll stop if it’s too much. I only want you to feel good.” Crowley huffed a little through his nose. Aziraphale took that as assent. With a long exhale, he loosened the metaphysical restraints that ordinarily contained his angelic self, and dipped a little into Crowley.

He almost bounced right back out. There was so much pain inside the demon, in so many places. Pain from the corporation — too cold, hungry, sore — but there were more layers. Crowley’s angelic form — the wings stung, too sensitive, the skin raw, Aziraphale was aghast to realize, from the Hellfire that had burned them to black ash. But the angel sensed there were even deeper layers to Crowley’s hurt. His soul had spiky walls of loneliness and despair, and beneath that —

Aziraphale resurfaced with a shudder. “Six thousand years, Crowley—“

“S’alright...” Crowley paused then, and Aziraphale sensed that Crowley had stopped because the angel hadn’t been able to keep himself from emitting a pulse of indignance. He had to withdraw a little bit to regain self-control and allow Crowley’s emotions to be more important.

“You don’t deserve to feel like this, still. It’s immoral,” Aziraphale said indignantly, once he’d achieved some control.

Crowley mumbled something with some f’s and b’s in it. Aziraphale sternly tamped down his negative emotions, took a deep breath, and asked: “What was that, dear?”

“Not immoral, angelll,” Crowley slurred. “Infff — Ineffabibble.”

Aziraphale couldn’t hold back a bark of laughter, but that was all right, because it was accompanied by a wave of fondness that had Crowley sighing, rubbing his head against Aziraphale’s thigh, and wasn’t that a new delight?

“Sssss’alright, sssokay if you can’t do anything, angel. This is how Ssssshe wants usss,” Crowley whispered.

“Rubbish,” Aziraphale said, firmly, his ire tempered by love. He gripped Crowley’s shoulder, willing strength into him. “There’s something I can do, I’m sure of it. May I try?”

Crowley was silent for a long minute. They breathed together, unnecessary breaths that nevertheless united them. At length, Crowley nodded again.

Aziraphale steeled himself and carefully went back in. The physical discomforts of Crowley’s human corporation were nothing at all to fix; he committed similar miracles almost without thought on a daily basis, just walking down a crowded city street. He warmed Crowley’s cold blood, eased the aches in his joints, suggested to the immune system to tone down the inflammation just a tad, and paused at the pituitary to coax it into being a little freer with the dopamine and oxytocin. Under his hands, he felt Crowley’s skin warm and his body soften even further into the couch.

“Does that feel a little better?” He asked.

Crowley inhaled — he’d stopped breathing, for a bit — then exhaled a quiet “Yeahhh. S’good, angel.”

Emboldened by this easy, little success, Aziraphale braved going deeper into Crowley’s stormy soul, and contemplated the blackened wings. They were not dark-colored versions of his own. Aziraphale’s own feathers were soft as cloud, radiating a magical warmth that hummed with celestial energy. Crowley’s feathers were both brittle and sharp, each quill causing an irritating burn where it emerged from skin that was still raw from its bath in boiling sulfur. _Six thousand years ago_ , Aziraphale thought again, with a sense of horror that he tried to stuff as deep as he could in his soul so that Crowley wouldn’t sense it. Aziraphale sensed that he’d have some spiritual indigestion because of that, but it was a small price to pay.

Aziraphale wasn’t sure what to do about the feathers, but perhaps he could address the pain at their roots. Demons were all fire and earth; Aziraphale directed air and water along the flesh of Crowley’s wings, soothing and cooling. Would that chill the demon too much? Best to counteract that with adoration for his strength, his bravery, his beauty. Aziraphale had a bottomless well of love to draw from, and he mixed it along with soothing ice into the skin and muscles and tendons of Crowley’s wings.

Treating Crowley’s wings, Aziraphale was deeply buried in alternate planes, but he still felt distant sensations of his human corporation. He felt Crowley shudder, and heard an inarticulate groan, and pulled his consciousness out far enough to check in on Crowley’s body in the Earthly realm. 

The demon was trembling. More than that, actually shaking. Not from cold, the angel sensed; just strong emotion. Aziraphale petted his hair. Crowley turned, restless, his head still on Aziraphale’s lap, his chest turning toward the sofa. It looked like a horrible angle for his neck. There was a shimmering above his back. 

Feeling brave, Aziraphale drew his human hand down from Crowley’s head, down his neck, to between his shoulder blades. There was electric energy sparking from Crowley’s back. Aziraphale stroked Crowley. He tipped forward and breathed into his ear: “Let them out, dearest.”

Crowley sighed and _leaned_ his wings into the corporeal plane. One was awkwardly pressed upwards against the sofa back while the other spilled off the sofa onto the floor. Aziraphale took a moment to suggest to the couch that it become a chaise lounge instead, and then Crowley’s wings could both sag while Aziraphale could remain comfortably upright. Crowley’s inky wings spread, twitching, fluttering.

Aziraphale spent a few minutes glorying in the sensation of petting the smooth coverts at the base of Crowley’s wings. They were stiffer than his own, like a snake’s scales along Crowley’s spine and only slightly softer over his shoulder blades. Aziraphale felt an urgent temptation to dig his fingers into the feathers, to explore with his human hands all of Crowley’s different textures from the scales above to the skin beneath, but suspected it would overstimulate his poor friend. He carefully filed that desire away for potential later enjoyment and schooled his hands to continue their methodical stroking down Crowley’s spine.

Crowley’s shaking subsided, but after every few breaths he shuddered again. His hand reached up and clutched at Aziraphale’s knee. Aziraphale rested his free hand atop Crowley’s and the demon took it in a tight grip, still shaking.

“Are you still all right, my dear?”

Crowley didn’t answer, but he brought Aziraphale’s hand to his lips. Aziraphale stopped moving and waited. Crowley shuddered for a few more minutes, then was quiet. Aziraphale returned his free hand to Crowley’s hair. Crowley took a deep breath and let it out shakily.

Aziraphale licked his lips. He felt that he hadn’t done enough yet, but was wary of pushing Crowley too much. “Do you need me to stop?”

“ _No._ ” Crowley gripped Aziraphale’s hand so tightly that it hurt. Aziraphale didn’t mind. It was nothing, compared to what Crowley suffered, and he would take that pain and a thousand more pains like it for Crowley’s sake. He waited. “No,” Crowley said again. The demon’s body was entirely limp, but his wings twitched, the feathers over his shoulders fluffing. Aziraphale waited more. Finally, Crowley took a deep breath and said, “Pleassssssse. Don’t sssstop. I want. Want you to.” He tensed. “Don’t wanna hurt you—“

“Sssshhhhhh,” Aziraphale said, petting from Crowley’s head to his back some more, squeezing his hand. “I’m so glad you asked me.” This was the moment, he felt. One hand holding Crowley’s, the other splayed out on the feathery scales on his back, Aziraphale dove in again, beneath the human skin, beneath the snaky scales, into a different plane, down and down into Crowley’s immortal soul.

At Crowley’s core was a yawning pit, a whirling storm, a weeping wound of longing. Aziraphale felt a sense of vertigo and could not help his fearful response. But the fear moved forth from him in a wave and he felt Crowley react protectively, ready to push him out. Aziraphale tamped down his fear, reminding himself and Crowley equally: _I trust you. You are everything to me._ And, saying between their souls what he hadn’t been able to say yet in words: _I love you._ Crowley wouldn’t have believed the words, but, soul-to-soul, he knew their truth, and was pleased, frozen, caught between disbelief and certainty, and thereby distracted both from his own pain and Aziraphale’s fear.

Aziraphale controlled his emotions and approached the pit. It felt like sadness, and pain, and loss. It hurt to interact with, but Crowley felt this hurt all the time, so Aziraphale reached out and took some of it onto himself, asked: _what hurt you like this? How can I repair it?_

Aziraphale had a vision then, or an emotion-sensation: a child, rejected by his mother. A betrayal. Questioning and self-hatred. _It must be bad, or I wouldn’t have been punished._

Aziraphale realized that the yawning vortex that ate the center of Crowley’s soul was the Fall. The withdrawal of grace. The place where God had loved him, and now did not. It was there, at the center of Crowley, sucking in every positive emotion, every happy thought, leaving him empty and angry and distrustful of every good thing. Or _almost_ every good thing.

Afterward, Aziraphale would be proud that he didn’t feel a moment of pity. Instead, he lit with incandescent ferocity, all his Principality energy of protection and strength filling Crowley’s core with light and love. He didn’t bother to shield Crowley from it. Rather, he gathered his ferocity, and stirred it together with the bliss he’d felt earlier, until he felt like a bubbling pot of righteous, enraged love and devotion, and he poured it outward, flowing into a wall around the despair-filled pit, grabbing tendrils of Crowley’s essence, weaving it into a protective vault built from Crowley’s indomitable spirit and Aziraphale’s love and determination. He laid the walls with their strength, mortared them with their love, and topped it with the capstone of his faith in their mutual devotion and then everything whited out, and he was overcome.

——

Aziraphale inhaled. It seemed like a long time since his body had last done that. His cheeks were wet. His hand ached. But all that was swept aside by the clap of wings and the surge of a demon writhing up and twining all six limbs around him.

“ _IloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouIloveyouI—“_ Crowley whispered frantically, without inhaling, radiating fierce relief, every muscle shuddering. Aziraphale felt faint at the power of it and could do nothing except hold on.

After a long time, Crowley’s shaking ebbed, and the demon fell asleep, his wings sliding back out of corporeal reality as it happened. Dawn was breaking. Aziraphale extricated himself from the remaining four twining limbs and covered Crowley with a crocheted blanket. 

That had been a lot. Aziraphale felt shaken and wished he could just curl up with Crowley in slumber. But it wasn’t his nature. Instead, he puttered, making tea, fetching more blankets and pillows, surrounding Crowley in a cozy nest, and finally selected a new book to read as he watched Crowley sleep.

Crowley slept for three weeks, and Aziraphale watched over him the whole time, protecting, guarding, radiating devotion. It was the least he could do, Aziraphale thought. He still owed his demon so much. But he felt satisfied that he was finally giving back, just a little bit, for the blessings that Crowley had bestowed upon him.

**Author's Note:**

> I have a lot of different directions I want to go from here. What did you like? What were you confused by? I crave critical engagement with my work. Kudos fill my heart and comments stimulate my brain, even if they are politely critical. Thanks for reading.


End file.
